Muggle Studies
by ACtravels
Summary: Archibald Penrose had a rubbish job: poor students, low levels of respect, high causality rates and some degree of amusement - depending on how you look at things. Why the hell would anyone want to be a muggle studies teacher?
1. iPod Injuries

September.

Third year class.

Nine students.

Oh, hell.

* * *

It was never easy to be a Muggle Studies teacher. Actually, a lot of the time it was downright difficult: the subject was generally considered an extraordinary waste of time by most students (as well as the wider general public) which resulted in a mixture of stupid and disinterested pupils who couldn't really give a crap about muggle culture, let alone muggle _history_. There were the odd strange muggleborns who thought they'd gain themselves an easy OWL and a few even odder muggle-nut students who became very excited and listened almost a little_ too_intently to everything being relayed within the classes - but mostly, you got classes of zombie students who simply did not care.

Of course, Archibald Penrose was one such muggle nut, but even he found the level to which some students seemed to_ really _care about what those mental muggles were doing slightly depressing – it reminded him of when he was their age, and that really was something quite frightening. He could remember full well being sat in front of Charity Burbage (bless her soul) having to reign in his excitement and practically shaking with anticipation for the next question.

He glanced down at his timetable. He was due to have a completely new class of third years – sure to be the same bunch of oddballs, train wrecks and slightly frightening children. He didn't even really like children, especially not when they were not-quite-children and instead on the verge of being introduced to their own hormones, the opposite sex, acne and such things... All of which only made them more repulsive. He often found himself sat at his desk wondering why the hell he'd decided to go into teaching of all things - it wasn't even like he was good at it.

Some of the older ones weren't too bad, although usually the ones who stuck it out to NEWT level were the real nutters. The sort who collected pencil sharpeners (disregarding the fact that Archibald Penrose himself actually did have a range of novelty pencil sharpeners hidden away in his office – but they were _novelty_pencil sharpeners whereas these crackpots just collect regular pencil sharpeners! You could buy those silly things anywhere you liked! There was nothing novelty about them at all).

He hadn't yet felt the need to depress himself by scanning down the list of new third years, but it probably was best to prepare himself for onslaught of the next hour. If this class was any worse than last year's class he would, quite possibly, consider leaving the classroom all together and hiding out in the staffroom until the period was over. It wasn't like any of the students would know who he was: being a muggle studies teacher most students hadn't a clue what he taught or what his name was... and most of the time just seemed to think he was a rather aged student that they hadn't seen around much before. Or a sort of servant.

Actually, the list seemed a lot shorter than normal. Upon some quick addition he realised with a great sigh of relief that there were only nine students – although in all honesty, he didn't recognise many of the names on the register: he noted that he had both 'Hugo Weasley' and 'Lily Potter' scribbled down and, oh yes, he had 'Herman Goyle' which he was sure was going to be a truly delightful experience that would probably result in some rather intense counselling.

Then again, he was often rather surprised that his job hadn't led to a hefty removal to St Mungos. Or why, upon hearing his job decision, nobody had referred him to St Mungos before the real insanity started.

The bell rang and Archibald Penrose looked up at it feeling disgruntled. He certainly was not ready to have the next class in just yet. Admittedly, his job wasn't half as difficult as say... being a Transfiguration teacher and having to have multiple classes from all year groups, but at least in Transfiguration there were a good deal of average students. No students taking muggle studies were average: either completely bonkers or shockingly stupid.

There was the usual irritating backdrop of hustle and bustle from the corridor outside as masses of students began pushing their way to the next lesson. A student pushed open the door, raised an eyebrow at Archibald Penrose in greeting, and then sat himself down at the very back of the classroom.

Archibald started at the student: a rather arrogant looking third year with too much hair and, Archibald supposed, more attitude than brain cells.

"Name?" Archibald asked.

"Kevin."

"Surname?"

"Pips," the boy said, using a chair on the row in front to prop up his feet, "the others are waiting outside." Kevin Pips said after another moment.

Archibald sighed, pulled himself off his desk and headed towards the door. He threw it open and gestured for the other students to enter the classroom: he countered six, including the Weasley boy and the Potter girl.

He glanced at his watch. Two late, not bad really – for a first attempt.

"Right, I am Professor Penrose your new Muggle Studies professor," Archibald said, perching on the end of his desk and watching with a vague degree of amusement as the students began fighting for the seats on the back row. Hugo Weasley had set himself down on the second row from the front (an eager beaver – sure to be one of those oddballs) and Lily Potter reluctantly sat next to him and began inspecting her nails with a bored expression. "I don't know any of you, so if you'd like to introduce yourselves..."

Herman Goyle had managed to bag himself a seat in the back corner, potentially due to his sheer size and his relative degree of intimidation. Archibald considered that he was mildly surprised that Herman had been allowed to take Muggle Studies, before chiding himself for being so judgemental. He introduced himself as 'Herms' in a grunt that reminded Archibald very much of a guard troll, except less attractive.

"Johnny English." The Ravenclaw next to Goyle said cheerfully, and Archibald made a note that he must ask whether the kid's parents were purebloods and ignorant or just a little bit cruel. Either way, he knew what film he was going to show them first.

"Tabatha," a girl, sat next to Kevin Pips and wearing Hufflepuff robes added helpfully, "Tabatha Street."

"Goliath Lockhart." The final boy said and Archibald had to suppress the desire to laugh. Wizards really were appalling at naming their children: he always thought Archibald was bad enough, but to genuinely be called Goliath was nothing short of ridiculous. All this talk of muggle-wizard unity went out the window the second a teenage boy was introduced as 'Goliath' where muggles were using names like 'Cheryl' 'Apple' and 'Gabbie.' If he was honest, he couldn't decide which was worse.

Then again, _Goliath Lockhart_...

"Hugo Weasley!" Said the ginger kid excitably, his quill and parchment already out on the table dying to take notes. Poor kid had probably been looking forward to this all summer.

"Lily Potter." The girl said sounding very bored and clearly showing all her teenage attitude in her reluctance to be in the classroom. It seemed liked they'd been some good old fashioned peer pressure to get her into the room in the first place.

"So, that means we're waiting on a Jessica James and... Franklin Stainwright."

"I don't know where Jessie is." Tabatha piped up.

Archibald was beginning to think the entire register was some sort of practical joke: Jessie James? Johnny English? This is why wizards needed educating. This was really just unfortunate.

"Well, we might as well make a start," Archibald said, reaching into his desk and pulling out several items. "Now, if you can all come gather round this front desk."

No one, bar Hugo Weasley, seemed particularly enthusiastic about the idea. They actually managed to waste about five minutes of the lesson shuffling to the front, pushing each other several times, and generally making an unnecessary fuss about the whole thing. Archibald rolled his eyes and waited for them all to shut up before placing the three times on the desk.

"Now, I want you to take an item each and talk about what they are – work in twos and a three. Oh, nice of you to join us – Franklin Stainwright, I suppose?" The blonde boy nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, "please tell me they call you Franklin-stein." Archibald suggested hopefully.

"What's that?" Tabatha asked, "Franklin-stein."

"In muggle literature," Archibald began, "Frank_en_stein is a gothic story about a man who made a monster out of dead bits of humans."

"Like an inferi?" Hugo Weasley questioned eagerly.

"Sort of, but all sewn together. Then this monster went and killed everyone this guy loved because he was so ugly..."

"So you're saying I'm ugly?" Franklin demanded.

"No." Archibald said, feeling quite taken aback.

"You're saying I'm a monster?"

"No," He said hastily, "I was just suggesting that your name reminded me of a muggle book. Its written by Mary Shelley, if any of you want to read it," he suspected next time he saw Hugo Weasley he'd have his nose attached to a battered old copy of Frankenstein. "Anyway – back to the objects in front of you. See if any of you can work out what they do."

He had strong doubts about that.

Herman Goyle and Johnny English were joined by Franklinstien, as he would hence forth be known, as they began pressing various buttons on a scientific calculator. They were finding this a little more amusing than he anticipated and he was beginning to suspect that they were seeing what rude words or images they could create by using the different functions – he didn't mind that too much though, most muggle kids did exactly the same from what he could work out.

Goliath Lockhart and Kevin Pips, or more just Goliath Lockhart as Kevin wasn't even trying to pretend to be interested, were examining a dog lead although Goliath seemed to think it was some form of torture device and was very entertained by all the potential there was in the elastic. Hugo Weasley and Lily Potter, however, had the iPod.

"Sir, it's to listen to music too – isn't it?" Hugo asked eagerly, placing the earpieces in his ears. Lily stared at it, seeming unimpressed, and poked the cool metal unceremoniously, "and... you switch this to turn it on and then... OW!" Hugo shrieked, pulling the headphones out of his ears so hard that one of the headphones ripped into two pieces.

"Don't turn it on!" Archibald said hastily, "Hogwarts make those things go haywire, oh dear... well, can you hear me?" Archibald asked loudly.

Hugo gaped at him.

"Can you hear me?" Archibald repeated even louder, "CAN YOU HEAR ME!"

"Obviously not," Kevin Pips said from the back of the classroom, raising his eyebrows and looking unimpressed.

"Well, will one of you take him to the Hospital wing?" This request was met by a ringing silence. Even Lily Potter stared pointedly at the floor as if to avoid the embarrassment of escorting her cousin anywhere. Fair play, mostly it seemed she was slightly on the cooler end of the scale where it came to her and her cousin. There was no point bringing both of their reps down.

"Right, all of you stay here – okay?" Then he gestured for Hugo to follow him. It was always the keen ones who managed to get themselves injured – idiots.

Hugo was fixed within a minute but was instructed to stay in the Hospital wing until he'd regained his balance – as anti-deafening charms had a habit of making one fall over a lot – and Archibald was back in his classroom a mere ten minutes after he'd left it. Unfortunately.

He realised, upon entering the room, that he might have made quite a big mistake and leaving the students with the muggle articles.

Goliath Lockhart had been tied to his chair by the dog lead, had the broken headphones used as substitute handcuffs and had the calculator shoved into his mouth.

Archibald blinked for a few minutes and stared at the scene. Herman Goyle looked like the only person who didn't find the scene amusing (probably because he hadn't noticed anything had happened) and although Kevin Pips was airing an unruffled look he couldn't help but grin slightly. Tabatha Street and Lily Potter were outwardly laughing. Johnny English and Franklinstien were grinning and Archibald Penrose didn't know what the hell to make of it.

"Did you know that muggles actually used to have a torture device where someone was tied onto a table and stretched? Some muggles have the death penalty, like the electic chair. Sometimes the police use taser guns," Archibald continued, realising for the first time that he'd managed to really capture the attention of the class. It seemed blood and carnage were the way forward. "Muggles play this recreational game where they shoot balls of paint at one another from a gun. Some muggles play computer games where they have to shoot nuns and aliens... they have films about spies and shooting and violence."

There was an awed silence across the room. Archibald relished in it for a second (trying not to remember that he'd had to resort to exactly the same technique last time he had a new class of uninterested third years) and decided that he was going to aim for a long dramatic pause.

"But I can't teach you about any of that," he continued, "If you mess around. Now, this is a dog lead and this is a calculator – do any of you know what muggles use these for?"

Goliath Lockhart, who still had a calculator shoved in his mouth, began to nod excitedly. Archibald stared at him. He must be one of those too, no one else got excited about muggles whilst tied to a chair with a calculator shoved in their gob. He'd just been better at hiding it than Hugo.

"Take the calculator out of his mouth, Pips," Archibald ordered reluctantly.

"My dad wrote this book about muggles," Goliath began excitedly, "he lost his memories see, so he lived as a muggle for awhile after his memories began to return – and he wrote all about how muggles use calculators to contact people – by pressing the buttons, you see – and aren t iPods used so that muggles can watch films in their heads and the dog lead are for -"

"For what?" Archibald asked in a bored voice, "for hunting dogs for supper? For riding dogs? For tripping dogs over?"

"No," Goliath said, his face creasing slightly as if Archibald had been the one to suggest something ridiculous, "for when muggles want to take their pet dogs for walks,"

"Oh," Archibald said awkwardly, "well,"

The bell rang and the seven remaining students began clambering for their bags excitedly. Archibald crossed the classroom to help the effort to release Goliath from the chair (he wasn't staying in Archibald's classroom for any longer than necessary) and was beginning to feel slightly inadequate. It seemed that his students would have actually gone away knowing_ less_about muggle culture, rather than more.

"Wait up, Franklinstien!" Tabatha said, pushing ahead of Johnny English to catch up with him. Archibald felt a small smile creep up at his lips – at least the nickname had caught on. And maybe they would read Frankenstien?

"I may be wrong," Kevin Pips said, pausing near the door, "but aren't the things that muggles use to talk to each other called... telephones?"

Archibald sank back on to his seat with a grin, nodding to Kevin as he sauntered out with far too much attitude for a thirteen year old. He gave himself another moments rest before glancing at his timetable to realise that, yes, he had the sixth years next...

An entire hour of Fred and Dominique Weasley who insisted on making it their mission to explain all muggle culture through the medium of interpretive dance, much to the amusement to the two other slackers and the irritation of the resident oddball. The other seven students in that group were too thick to know any better and probably, if Archibald was honest with himself, still– after his months of solid grafting – believed that the bible was a rather extravagant doorstop. Still, watching Freddie Weasley do a one man adaptation of 'Cane and Able' followed by Dominique Weasley attempting to pretend to be the _Virgin_Mary was usually fairly amusing.

Archibald sighed and clicked his novelty biro a couple of times to fill in the silence: it isn't always easy, being a muggle nut.

* * *

_Five chapters up on HPFF, entirely supposed to be cracky and ridiculous and cure my writers block._


	2. A Bunch of Crushing Disappointments

October.

Seventh year class (plus an extra).

Four students (plus an extra).

How bad can it be?

* * *

The trouble with Archibald Penrose's seventh year classes was that it was more or less a concentrated and shrunken form of all his other classes. The usual class dynamic tended itself towards a few muggle-fanatics who lapped up every word Archibald said, a few Muggleborn students who liked to point out that they knew more than he did, a few shockingly lazy students and a few students who were truly and utterly thick.

By the time these students reached NEWT level a large quantity dropped out, favouring to study more important subjects that actually might get them a job. The only exception to the rule was his sixth year class, which remained one of his biggest – although he suspected that was because Dom and Fred Weasley had an innate ability to make every class 'interesting' and nobody wanted to miss all the fun. Normally, with his calibre of students, most of his class were either pregnant, in prison or unemployed somewhere other than Hogwarts by the time Seventh year rolled along.

Thus, the register for his seventh year group had dropped down to four pupils. It had begun at six at the beginning of the year, but one girl had unexpectedly and prematurely given birth to twins in the boy's toilets (Archibald hadn't bothered to question the location) at the beginning of September and another had dropped out to join the family business of organised criminality.

Ronald McDonald was one of Archibald's favourite students because his name was so ridiculous and amusing that it kept him truly entertained for hours. It helped that in the entire time he'd taught Mr Ronald McDonald, and this was the fourth year he'd seen his ugly mug in his classroom on a regular basis, the only question he'd ever asked in class was whether he could go to the bathroom.

Victoria Thickey (thicky-Vicky, as Hogwarts had dubbed her after the third time she'd entirely fallen through the trip staircase in her second week of school) was unbelievably dim. She was one of the few students that Archibald would be able to give something of a positive character reference, because it was true that she was a very nice girl with very good intentions – it was just the cogs in her brain seemed to turn so slowly that more often than not people gave up waiting for an answer and had left before she'd had the chance to speak up. She tried hard and worked laboriously slowly throughout all of his lessons, something which he found slightly disconcerting, and continually asked questions until she fully understood everything.

Unfortunately, this meant Archibald sometimes spent entire lessons trying to explain the origins of electricity only to have to back step and explain, once more, how exactly electricity worked. Not that there was anything wrong with that, because he'd could put up with repeating himself like a broken record (Archibald loved muggle idioms) but the obnoxious third member of the group made Archibald feeling like ripping apart one of his novelty pens and throwing the little spring at him in a fit of rage.

Elliot Cooper. The most loathsome student he'd taught. It was a close competition when you factored in Reece Hickenbottom, who'd been perversely interested in bodily functions and had spent a year talking about defecation and showing off his only two talents – burping and farting. That, combined with the complete ignorance when it came to muggle made Archibald dread every the moment he'd next walk into his classroom, surrounded in a cloud of something that usually smelt fowl. In the end, Hickenbottom had reached his demise when he'd been unable to take the end of third year Muggle Studies exam due to being bedridden in the hospital with severe... stomach issues.

It was the singular time that Archibald had ever believed in a God.

(Later, he'd come to different conclusions due to Neville's sheepish expression and the fact that later that day his Herbology students were studying Skunk's roots, so called for the odious odour it produced. He'd never mentioned anything. He couldn't begin to image what the vile creature would have done when presented with bags of dragon manure and told to use it as fertilizer).

Still, Elliot Cooper piped the potty-mouthed toilet-talking Reece Hickenbottom to the post by being a right twit. He was muggleborn and continued studying NEWT Muggle Studies as an extra, unnecessary subject so he had a chance to revel in how he was more intelligent than Ronald McDonald, Thicky-Vicky and Simon 'Squeaky' Fawcett.

"Sir," a voice said from the doorway, and Archibald looked up to see Miss Barbie/Shelly Skively framed in the doorway looking slightly distressed. Miss Barbie was one of his old fifth year students who'd dropped out of Muggle Studies after OWLS to take some more serious, more helpful subjects and Archibald couldn't think of a single reason why she would be stood in his doorway ringing her hands and looking slightly desperate, "Professor Longbottom sent me to talk to you, I want to take up Muggle Studies again."

"Why?" A voice asked, and Archibald was quite stunned that he, himself hadn't said it. And, if he were to guess at the second owner of such a rude statement he would have gone for Cooper... but instead, Simon 'Squeaky' Fawcett had been the one to speak (it was quite easy to tell due to his freakishly deep voice; post-puberty, Squeaky's nickname had become even more ironic).

"Yes," Elliot Cooper added, and Archibald suspected that Elliot was surprised it hadn't come from him too, "you can't possibly have _missed_it?"

Miss Barbie flushed slightly, her well made up cheeks not quite hiding her embarrassment. "I don't like Charms," she said, "and so I was going to... swap."

"Swap Charms for Muggle Studies?" Cooper demanded, his greasy voice speaking so Archibald didn't have to. "Are you mad?"

"No," Miss Barbie said, turning towards Cooper and glaring at him, "is it any of your business?"

Archibald repressed a smile. He loved it when other people found Cooper as annoying as him, it made him feel like he wasn't simply an irritable woe-filled wrench, but a normal human subjected to extreme frustrations.

"Well you're interrupting _our_lesson."

"Squeaky, do you mind that I'm asking Archie a question during your lesson? Vicky? Ronald? No, so actually the only person I'm bothering is you and quite frankly I don't care -"

"Professor Penrose." Archibald interjected.

"What?"

"You can't call me Archie," Archibald said, "Shelly, are you sure about this? You're a bright girl; you'd probably do very well in charms."

"Are you calling us thick?" Squeaky demanded. Oh, hell.

"No, not at all Sq... Simon," Archibald said, "I'm merely suggesting that -"

"-that we're not clever enough to do charms," Squeaky said, his face crumpling slightly.

"In his defence," Elliot Cooper said, "I think what Professor Penrose is _trying _to suggest is that Charms is usually valued more highly by employers and not that you're all a bunch of dunderheads sitting around being taught by an incompetent teacher who can't tell the difference between a netbook and a notebook and no Vicky, I'm not talking about pads of paper."

"Oh my God," Barbie/Shelly said, holding out her usual, long fuchsia nails, "these nails are reinforced by three different spells, do you want them in your eyeballs, Cooper?"

"Skively, Cooper – no rude or threatening behaviour in my classroom, please."

"He's acting like they're stupid!"

"Her nickname is Thicky-Vicky, for Christ's sake!" Elliot Cooper said. "He's named after an icon for a fast-food joint and -"

"I don't think you're stupid, Vicky." Ronald McDonald said firmly, although Archibald suspected that this comment would only speed up the process of Vicky realising she'd been insulted, rather than making her feel any better.

"Me neither," Archibald lied (all part of the training). "And Cooper, ten points from Ravenclaw and a detention next Saturday. I won't have obnoxious behaviour towards other students," Silently, Archibald added 'just towards me.' "And no degrading nicknames." Archibald added, struggling not to crack up with the irony of that one.

"Sir." Shelly said, and Archibald was relieved to see her high polished nails were no longer poised for attack (he might have got in the way and he certainly didn't want any of Barbie's charm work near his eyeballs – particularly if she was dropping the subject). This and the fact that he'd been given another excellent excuse to punish Cooper for being a little brat made Archibald feel slightly empowered and, for once, good about his job.

Apparently, punishing students paved the path to job satisfaction and a positive mental attitude. Until, of course, the student either didn't turn up for the detention or Archibald realised that detention meant he had to spend more time in the same room with another moronic teenager.

"Right," Archibald said, "you four get on with what you're supposed to be doing and then -"

"-but, Sir," Vicky said, looking up at him with her wide, slow eyes, "you haven't set us any work yet."

"Well," Archibald said, thrown for a minute, "look over the course outline I gave you a couple of weeks ago... make sure you're familiar with all the components. Think about which novel you're going to write an essay on for the 'muggle culture, entertainment and leisure' coursework. Okay? Right, Shelly... is it because you're finding charms difficult?"

"No," Shelly said, glaring at Elliot Cooper's head, "I just... I don't want to study it."

"Do you want to go into a job where Muggle relations are important?"

"Hell no."

"Well then, I'm just struggling to see why you'd want to continue studying it?"

"Don't you want me?" Shelly said, ringing her hands. Archibald backed away from her nails slightly. It wouldn't be the first time he was scared Barbie's nails had been about to pierce his flesh. Students were terrifying, particuarlly when he'd inadvertently offended them (so, all the time – essentially).

"Of course it would be a pleasure to have you back again," Archibald said (ah, today was a good day for dishonesty), "but you never appeared to have any particularly enthusiasm from the subject. In fact, the only lesson you appeared to enjoy yourself was with the space hoper – "

"Wasn't my fault," Shelly said, "Fred pushed me."

"Shelly, why do you want to study Muggle Studies?"

"You just don't want another student! You don't care about us!"

"Skively, if I didn't care deeply about both my pupils and teaching then there would be little reason for me to remain at Hogwarts. It's not like anyone is going to thank me for teaching them how magnets work."

"Yeah," Shelly said, looking down at her hands again. Although Archibald had to admit that as Shelly was in a class with Dom Weasley she'd probably never had a chance to shine as a mouthy-argumentative-type, but he wasn't accustomed to have Barbie being quite so on edge. This was the sort of thing that set his teacher-instincts alight... warning him quite clearly to send her back to Neville so she could have her teen-breakdown in his office, rather than in his classroom.

He didn't want to be the one who had to clean up.

"So, is there a reason?"

"Yes." Shelly admitted, not looking at him.

"Is it something you'd rather not talk about?"

"Can... can we go outside?" Shelly said, her mouth tilting downwards as she continued to ring her hands. Archibald's inner alarm system (he usually likened in to smoke detectors in his mind) was screaming in warning, but for some reason he offered her a nod.

"Just... talk amongst yourself." Archibald told his seventh years, as what damage could two slow students; one lazy student and one horrible student do in ten minutes? Well, he supposed he'd see as no doubt they'd do their best to test out the possibilities themselves.

"Shelly," Archibald said when they were both outside his classroom (he'd almost forgotten what life looked like outside those four walls, it was quite nice really), "what on earth could be wrong with Charms?"

"It's the teacher." Shelly said miserably, putting her hands in her pockets.

"The new charms teacher?" Archibald questioned. "She seems... well, charming."

"Yeah, well..."

"You don't like her?"

"No, it's not that I don't_ like_her," Shelly said, "I just don't want her to be my teacher."

"You can talk to me, you know." Archibald said carefully, although he wasn't entirely sure why anyone would want to. Or why he was actually suggesting that they should. He'd always thought the muggle system of having someone employed to deal with these sorts of things had a lot going for it – pastoral care and all that.

"Sir," Shelly said helplessly, so quietly he could barely hear, "I've got a _crush _on her."

Well that was new.

Inside, Archibald was flailing in a sea of confusion, a slight desire to laugh and complete bamboozlement. There were too many things to take in at once. The first being that he really wasn't equipped to deal with these sorts of issues. The second was centred around various 'soaps' (and by that, he didn't mean the stuff you put in the bath) he'd watched back to back during the holidays and was vaguely reminded of some lingering trace of a ridiculous storyline.

"It's not a big deal," Shelly said, her face a magenta to match her bright nails or a random Barbie doll's dress, "I just thought it would be better if I... just, moved out of her class."

"Er, yes, okay," Archibald said, "well that's fine with me then. If you're sure."

"Yeah," Shelly said, beginning to ring her hands again, "can I go now?"

"Feel free," Archibald said, blinking repeatedly at her retreating black. Dear Merlin, he wasn't cut out of this. It would have taken years of training to be cut out for _this_.

Archibald Penrose paused, turning back to his classroom and entered with a degree of trepidation: not even Merlin could predict what the four nut jobs inside his room might have achieved in his absence. Probably some sort of weapon; a nuclear bomb, or something of that calibre.

Elliot Cooper was calmly explaining how 'The Lord of the Rings' had changed his life and how he thought that might be an interesting take on the coursework criteria to cover a muggle Fantasy.

Archibald was so shocked he had to sit down for the rest of the lesson. It went against the way of things, for students to _actually_be productive.

It wasn't natural.

* * *

_I'm working on this story all month over on HPFF so I thought I might as well upload more onto here. It is, of course, ridiculous in every way but... I hope you enjoy! Next up: November chapter. Halloween. Compulsory Muggle Studies lessons for some. Yup, all pretty exciting... please review :)_


	3. Compulsions and Convulsions

November.

Compulsory class.

Thirty three students (+ student 'helpers').

Wow.

* * *

Archibald Penrose had now been patrolling for two hours. He'd practically assaulted the Charming Charms teacher with his eagerness to take over her patrolling-shift, half locking her back in her office as he continued to pace up and down the corridor pretending that he was actually doing something. She was new, so he supposed she might buy the story he'd sold her (really didn't mind patrolling, walking around helped him clear his head, dreadful migraine, no need for two of them to do it), but mostly she probably thought he was doing something quite illegal and just wanted her out the way.

This wasn't strictly true. The problem was the Headmistress wanted to see Archibald in his office pronto and the more things Archibald managed to find to do in random parts of the castle the longer it would take for Aurora Sinstra to find him and drag him, kicking and screaming into her office. Then, he suspected, he'd either be presented with another letter of complaint, a pay reduction or would be fired – and he really wasn't in the mood right now.

He'd have to return to Nottingham and, really, his girlfriend was already irritated enough at him without them having to actually co-inhabit the same apartment. That was bad enough over the summer holidays.

Neville had given him the heads up over dinner and thus Archibald Penrose had hurriedly placed down his cutlery and said something incomprehensible about extra-curricular activities, had taken on three separate teacher's patrolling duties and had thought of several ways he could pitch Muggle Studies as a valuable aspect of the curriculum that shouldn't be dropped, _just in case_.

"Archie!" Michael Corner said cheerfully and Archibald knew that this amount of happiness radiating from one of his co-worker meant he should be aware of where his wand was at all times. And possibly a gun.

"Got to... er, dash." Archibald said quickly, turning back down the corridor and walking as fast as he could in the other direction. He found himself in the entrance hall and thought, to hell with it, pushed the large double doors open and stumbled outside. He found himself walking to Hagrid's hut to give him some reason for wondering around the grounds at night. He searched around for something that could determine the reason behind the visit (he really was not a sociable man). His mind settled on the date: first of November. Four days to go. That was a good enough excuse. _Bonfire night._

* * *

"-I can't," Archibald told Aurora Sinistra quickly, "I can't... there's... I've got lots of things on."

"What?" The Headmistress asked, raising one of her skeletal eyebrows in his direction and tilting her head dangerously.

"I'm organising a... Bonfire night thing. I was talking to Hagrid about where would be best to build a fire I... I won't have time."

"Archie," Aurora began, and Archibald knew this battle was already lost, "there is no way we can give every single student caught trick or treating in front of the muggle villages of Hogsmeade a criminal record. It's simply not feasible. There were over thirty students. So, the Ministry is demanding an alternative – that alternative is a course of intensive, compulsory Muggle Studies lessons. _You_are our Muggle Studies teacher. Of course, if you'd prefer for me to find someone more willing to take on the responsibilities of the job..."

Archibald repressed the desire to tell her that yes, actually, he'd be much obliged if she replaced him with some other strange, kooky muggle nut who'd invariably believe that they would be the one to _finally _make Muggle Studies exciting for everyone. With a set of compulsory Muggle Studies lessons lined up until Christmas, they wouldn't last a week.

It was bad enough teaching students who'd selected Muggle Studies – the reasons behind the bizarre choice not withstanding – but to teach a bunch of students who's interested in the Muggles stretched to adopting the Halloween tradition of trick or treating into _illegal muggle bating_was... well... not appetising.

This was why the Wizarding world needed ASBOs.

* * *

Archie was beginning to become quite scared of how vivid the day dreams of hurting Professor Michael Corner and Professor Terry Boot were becoming since they had suggested 'student helpers' so innocently. Of course, the students that actually volunteered to help him run these God awful _compulsory Muggle Studies lessons_were going to be even weirder than the ones who picked Muggle Studies in the first place. He wasn't sure he was entirely prepared for things to get weirder.

There was the usual anomaly when it came to the number of students from his sixth year group who'd popped along to help out – Dom and Freddie (of course, they always seemed to be involved somehow) along with Borris and Gina, who was looking particularly angsty today. Shelly, it seemed, was still desperately trying to avoid him. A surprising lack of blonde representatives, just the giggling Nina, and then the entire quartet of seventh years. He hadn't asked the younger students – he didn't want to single them out for the bullies any more than they were already.

"Watch out, Sir," Fred said in a carrying voice, "Guy's on the warpath. He feels like his dementor Halloween costume didn't really classify as breaking the statute of secrecy, so he doesn't want to be here."

Archibald very much wanted to ask _who does? _But the answer to that was the bunch of loyal misfits who'd turned up to help out, and it would hardly do to offend them too.

"Guy?" Archibald questioned. "As in, his name is just _guy. _Like the _gender_."

"Guy Hamish Fawkes MacFarlan." Dom added happily.

"His... his name is_ Guy Fawkes_?" Archibald questioned, suddenly feeling quite excited about what he had planned. Then he remembered that the plan also involved fireworks, a bonfire and Freddie Weasley. The excitement waned.

"This is Thomas Hardy," Dom said brightly, "he's hard." She added, flicking her fingers in a way that Archibald rather hoped was ironic. Still, that was Muggle Culture right there – he'd definitely seen a TV show where there'd been lots of pre-teens wearing hoods, lots of gold chains and rather ridiculous hats placed at jaunty angles. Thomas Hardy seemed to be attempting to emulate this _chav s_tereotype: the usual pointed wizard-hat had been crumpled to the point of absurdity and was almost definitely on backwards, his robes had been brought several sizes too big making Archibald want to stand on the edge and see how far he'd could walk away before he tripped over, and his own variety of against-uniform-policy gold chains that probably weren't gold.

"Daniel Harrison Lawrence." Thomas Hardy's friend and partner-in-fashion said, jerking his neck in a way that made it seem like his ridiculously posh name should be _impressive_in some way. Add in the fact that is voice seemed to be thick with an odd mixture of brummy, cockney and undertones that just screamed of something more middle class... He wished he had a dictionary at hand to throw at him – he rather thought he might need it.

"Thomas Hardy and... DH Lawrence?" Archibald asked slowly, the usual wash of disbelieving amusement washing over him. Wizards really were thick.

"Yeah." Daniel Harrison Lawrence said, doing the weird neck-jerk again.

"How much do you love your mother?" Archibald asked before he could stop himself.

His face crumpled and creased in quite an alarming fashion.

"_Whaaat_?"

"It doesn't matter." Archibald said, silently and ironically branding them as _the lit duo _for the rest of time and pointing to their assigned seats feeling particularly grim.

"Who else are we waiting for?" Dom asked, stretching up on her tip toes to glance at the list in Archie's hand. "Oh, John Jigger's nice! Katie Price isn't too bad, I suppose." Archie decided not to comment on that one. He didn't trust himself. "Doris Dingle! Ah, Penelope Pilliwickle is always good value." He had to admit that with surnames like Jigger, Dingle and Pilliwickle it wasn't hard to understand why some Wizards thought such ridiculous first names were acceptable. "John Watson..." Dom continued.

"Sorry?" Archibald asked, looking back down at the list and trying to find that last one. He'd missed that name on the list; maybe such a beautiful occurrence had been lost amongst the obscure. "I didn't see..."

The name most definitely wasn't there.

"Struggling with observations?" Dom offered him a grin.

"You just made a muggle joke." Archibald said, feeling something akin to pride stirring up in his stomach.

"We'll make a Sherlock Holmes out of you yet." Dom grinned.

Archibald shook his head slightly. There _was _good in the world.

* * *

"No, Jigger – don't snigger at me." Dear Lord, his rants had succumbed to actually rhyming. That didn't help the current state of his classroom and as much as Archibald liked to think he could pull off _strict teacher_he hadn't bothered attempting it for awhile, and it wasn't going well.

"Muggles are just thick, _ennit_."

"No they're not. The reason the statute of Secrecy holds up is because every time a moron like one of you lot exposes muggles to magic they have to run around playing catch up and obliviating innocent -"

"- I wish I could obliviate_ this_from my memory." Guy MacFarlan muttered, to another snigger from John Jigger.

"- meaning their memory is permanently damaged. Does anyone know how severe the effects of memory charms can be?"

"That Goliath Lockhart kid... his Dad had his memories wiped."

"_And look at him_." Freddie put in, giving Archibald a thumbs up as if he was being remotely helpful. He wasn't. Still, fair point.

"Look," Archibald said, glancing round the classroom with a feeling of utter distaste, "you need to respect muggles. You can't just dress up as dementors and pull out your wands in front of them just because you don't understand. That's how wars start."

He glanced round at his student 'helpers': Borris had his face crunched up in concentration and was somehow still writing notes, Gina was colouring in the wrinkles in her knuckles nails with her quill, Elliot Cooper was looking obnoxious and smug and a little irritated, Vicky probably didn't know where she was and both Ronald McDonald and Simon 'Squeaky' Fawcett looked slightly vacant and bored. Fred leaned forward and quietly suggested _"how about you get the space hoper out again?" _

"So," Archibald continued, trying not to lose heart, "in these lessons you'll be learning a couple of the differences between Wizarding and Muggle culture, just so your ignorance doesn't suffocate you completely. We'll start basic as you're _clearly_a bunch of delinquents."

Archibald dug around in his desk and pulled out a wad of lined paper, a packet of pencils and a pack of cheep biros. "Ink and parchment alternatives." Archibald said, walking up the row of students and dropping a pen and a few sheets of paper on each desk. "Vicky, why don't you explain the differences between parchment and paper?"

"Parchment... is thicker."

"Thicker than what?" James Herriot (Archibald was still woefully amused, but was too scared he was going to get punched in the face to comment on it). "Surely not thicker than you, _Vicky_."

"What was your involvement in the events on Thursday night?" Archibald asked sharply, over the jeering and general use of foul language that was being thrown around his classroom. No one insulted the intelligence of his pupils but him – it wasn't decent.

"I sent a jet of water at a muggle out of my wand," He said arrogantly, "she needed to cool down."

"Why?"

"Well," James said, sending a look round the classroom before turning back to the front, "we went up to her and we said '_trick or treat'. _She said she'd didn't have no sweets cause she was just walking back from the pub, and that I weren't dressed up neither. So then I said I'd just take her money and she got angry."

"You do realise that's not even trick or treating? I'm pretty sure that's classified as_ mugging_. Anyway, Herriot, you obviously don't think you need to be here. That's fine by me. I'm actually a little insulted that I have to let you in to my classroom. But, you're lucky that all your friends are just as stupid as you – because if it wasn't for the fact that the Ministry doesn't want to embarrass themselves by how little progress they've made with muggle relations. But, the point is Herriot, next time you attempt to _mug a muggle, _you're going to have a permanent black mark on your record. Then, the next time you perform magic in front of a muggle, they're going to take away your wand and, you know what? I can't wait until you walk into your first day at a muggle job, because you can't work anywhere else and they fire you because you don't know how to use _a muggle pen. _For future reference," he finished, holding the pen in front of his face, "you click the top bit."

Archibald walked back up to the front of the classroom feeling slightly elated by the _absolute silence_that had fallen over the classroom. He'd dreamed of moments like this.

"What you want us to do with the paper?" Thomas Hardy asked.

"I don't know," Archibald said irritably, "write a lot of whiny poetry? Okay, no... write down five things you used magic for today."

"It doesn't smudge." Penelope Pilliwickle said, sounding quite delighted.

Archibald wanted to engage her in a conversation about the extensive selection of novelty pens in his office, but thought that now possibly wasn't the time.

"Now, when you've done that – although I'll give you a little longer, I know the English language is complicated for some of you – we're going to go through and talk about what you'd have to do if you were a muggle. Okay, any questions?"

"What's the point?"

"Were you just not listening before?" Archibald muttered irritably. "I know none of you want to be here. I certainly don't want to be here. I don't care of your enjoying it or not, but you will _listen _to what I say or you'll be in detention until you graduate from this place. Unless you drop out to go to prison, in which case I hope you can enjoy dressing up as dementors as much in Azkaban."

"No," a slightly tearful looking Doris Dingle said, "I mean, what's the pointy bit of the pencil for? Just because, I've broken the point off mine..."

Oh.

* * *

"Muggle fireworks are a bit boring." Dom commented, spit roasting her marshmallow over the questionable bonfire. In reality, it was more of a campfire than a bonfire but given he'd given his compulsory-students the encouragement (read: bribery) that those who got top scores on the test could come along to the Bonfire night celebrations and get free marshmallows... well, he'd decided that having a nice, small, controlled fire was preferable.

"I liked them," Penelope Pilliwickle said brightly, "they were pretty."

"Watching Penrose try to light 'em was proper funny." Thomas Hardy said, in his usual eloquent prose. Still, the Lit Duo had been lured onwards by the promise of food and had apparently jinxed Elliot Cooper and threatened him until he told them everything he could about muggle culture – which, as far as Archie was concerned, was a win on all accounts. He'd certainly impressed Aurora Sinistra with the enthusiasm he'd managed to generate amongst some of his compulsory pupils (although James Herriot had remained aloof and uninterested and despite his greatest hopes, the only question Guy Hamish Fawkes MacFarlan had been able to answer had been about muggle cigarettes). Still, there wasn't much the promise of a great big fire and some free food couldn't do.

They should have mentioned that at some point in his training course.

"Well," Archibald said dryly, "I'm honoured to have amused you."

"Ignore him," Miss Barbie said, "he's just bitter because he's signed his robes."

"Good to have you join us, Skively." Archibald countered with a small smile. He was actually really quite happy. There was something quite nice about sitting round a fire with his pupils – and Hagrid, Neville and the Charming Charms teacher for extra supervision – watching them quite calmly toast marshmallows and marvel over the excitement of Guy Fawkes trying to _blow up parliament_. Admittedly, Fred had taken the _remember, remember the fifth of November _chant a little bit too far, but those sorts of things were nothing compared to how truly terrible the daily compulsory lessons had been.

And, yes, he'd had to ban most of his students from using the sparklers but that hadn't exactly been a surprise. And it was probably for the best that Hugo Weasley learnt that sort of language at this point, rather than stumbling across it in a situation where Fred was available to explain and define what each choice swear word meant. Really, it was _healthier _this way.

"Well," she shrugged, "Gina said that you'd delivered some _fantastic_rants."

"I heard you made Doris Dingle cry," Kevin Pips added, with a sort of expression that was like a smile but had a lot more attitude attached to it, "by telling her she was going to go to prison."

The Charming Charms teacher looked slightly alarmed. No doubt she was the type to tell all her students that they were all going to fulfil their potential and get their dream jobs. And she seemed charming enough that it wouldn't seem patronising.

"You shouldn't believe gossip, Pips."

"But it was totally true," Lily Potter added in an undertone, "Freddie told me."

"You shouldn't believe Fred Weasley either." Archibald said, glancing over to where Fred Weasley was winding up Hagrid with talk of how _dangerous _hippogriffs were. Archibald very much thought that Fred Weasley didn't consider anything to be truly dangerous, but more_ fun_. Like irritating a half giant.

Scorpius, Locran and Lysander were doing something strange and probably blonde-related on the other side of the fire – possibly talking to Neville, who was fond of the peculiar trio. He could hear Nina giggling somewhere. Goliath Lockhart was talking at people. Hugo was annoying Elliot Cooper with lots of questions about the Lord of the Rings. Hardly any of his horrific forth year group had turned up. All together, everything felt rather_nice_.

A very loud, high pitched, swear word pierced the air.

"Vicky!" Simon 'Squeaky' Fawcett continued. "Drop it! It's on fire!"

Archibald stumbled to his feet to be met with the sight of Vicky rather stupidly staring at the stick she'd been using to melt her now burning Marshmallows, which had caught alight rather spectacularly.

"Don't drop it on my stuff!" Elliot Cooper yelled.

"Your stuff isn't important right now, Cooper," Shelly yelled, "in fact, your stuff is _never_important."

"Drop it you idiot!" Simon yelled, knocking the burning stick out of Vicky's hand and sending it flying towards the blondes, who scrabbled outwards and sent the entire pack of marshmallows into the greedy bonfire flames.

"I'm not an idiot." Vicky protested.

"You're all idiots!" Elliot yelled.

"THE MARSHMALLOWS." Dom screamed. Archibald was going to need an ear transplant after that performance. Ah, melodrama.

"The grass is on fire!"

"We're not actually muggles you know!" Elliot said, pulling out his wand and sending a jet of water at the singular blade of grass that seemed to have caught fire. His efforts were rather too enthusiastic and had just about doused the entire bonfire/campfire to nothing when Shelly threw something at him.

"Huh," Penelope Pilliwickle said, blinking rapidly, "I guess we could have done with James Herriot being here," She looked up at him conversationally, "he's quite good at water spells."

"Muggle Studies is fun," Thomas Hardy commented, "ennit."

With such a seal of approval, Archie had never been so proud.

* * *

_This one contained a lot of references to other things which aren't mine. The "how much do you love your mother" line is referring to Sons and Lovers by D.. Whiny poetry comment was in reference to Thomas Hardy. I couldn't resist a Sherlock Holmes reference or two (what with RDJ on the banner and all) so obviously that's Conan Doyle's. The name 'James Herriot' is borrowed from a character from 'All Creatures Great and Small'. You can probably only see these things if you squint, anyway, but... well... they're not mine. I just really enjoyed throwing them in there. It's one of those days. I actually just flat out had a lot of fun this one. Oh, yeah! TheGoldenKneazle gets credit for the idea of calling a character Guy Fawkes and that they should celebrate Bonfire Night in this chapter. Reviews would be lovely :)_

In the next chapter: Archibald's sixth year class. Bicycles are discussed. 


	4. On your bike, sir

December.

Sixth year class.

Twelve students.

Crap.

* * *

It was nearly the Christmas holidays, something of which Archibald Penrose was acutely aware as he reached the middle of the week: not only due to the fact that his students were becoming either more distracted or more excited, depending on the type of student in question; but also due to how own mixture of exaggerated cheeriness and growing weariness.

He'd stuck on 'Miracle on 34th Street' to occupy his sixth years, mostly because he thought it was an excellent film – even though he'd had to spend two hours fixing up a magical protector so that the films were watchable. Naturally, he'd already made compatible copies of all his favourite films so that he didn't get bored during term time, but it still wasn't as easy as it would have been if he was a muggle.

Still, if he was a muggle he'd probably be out of a job.

He may have to make some more copies over the holidays, as his sixth years had already enjoyed most of his films: 'Star Wars', 'The Notebook', and 'Mean Girls' being his particular favourites (films were the instant-solution to a double period with rowdy students, something which he had learnt well in his time). His copy of 'Grease' had been worn out by Fred and Dominique Weasley repeatedly watching it so they could learn the dance moves. Now they occasionally performed them to him in the corridors, which he always through was quite funny even though Professor Boot had never quite forgiven him for the time he had wound up with Fred Weasley's finger up his nose when he'd been a little too erratic during the a recital of the final, fantastical number.

"Sir, this is boring." Dom complained fifteen minutes into the double period, three days before the term was over. Dom and Fred were his anomalous students – they were always enthusiastic, a little too enthusiastic maybe, but he was entirely sure they didn't really care about muggles _or_studying them.

Today, Dom was sporting a pair of elf ears jauntily placed on her head, whereas Fred had opted for reindeer antlers – he appreciated this references to muggle culture, but was slightly unsure whether it was appropriate or not. He often found himself asking that sort of thing around those two.

"Sir, I've asked my dad for some muggle drinks for Christmas, I thought we could all have a taster session."

"That sounds like a good idea," Archibald nodded. Saved him planning a lesson, "wait," he said after a second, "no – not a good idea." By the look on their faces he could guess what kind of drinks they meant.

"We're all of age, sir, so it wouldn't be against the rules." Dom added in helpfully.

"When did you turn seventeen?" Archibald asked her curiously. On Fred's birthday he'd managed to acquire a cake with the face of a teletubby on the front (Archibald was really at a loss of how he'd gotten it – his own collection of teletubbies memorabilia contained nothing quite as exciting as a _cake_) which had resulted in Archibald having to explain what teletubbies were to an unprecedented amount of people. The strange thing was everyone seemed to think he was more insane for embracing muggle culture after the explanation, although that may have been down to the impression (_big hug!_).

Anyway, he couldn't imagine that Dom would have let her birthday slip by without a similar, if not more ridiculous, incident.

"Well it's in March – but I've got my sister's ID, so..."

"I should report you for that." Archibald muttered, rolling his eyes and pointedly turned up the volume of the film.

Dom poked the boy in front of her with her novelty flamingo pen (oh, how _proud_Archibald was); "whatcha getting for Christmas, Xavier?"

Archibald resisted the urge to suggest 'x-box' purely because Xavier Boxton hadn't understood the concept at all, and had threatened to file a complaint against him unless he deceased with the nickname. Bloody spoilt brat. Nobody appreciated geeky muggle jokes anymore. Besides, it wasn't like muggle children still had X-boxes these days.

Xavier looked up from taking notes in his exercise book (Archibald had mass ordered exercise books for half of his classes. His entire fourth year group had filled in the subject line with 'doss studies' and the form line with 'Archie's minions' but Archie had been so surprised by the organisation and the coordination that this must have taken the bunch of buffoons that he still considered this a success).

"New broom." Xavier grunted. They could blame deteriorating language skills on muggle technology all they liked, but it seemed that even wizarding kids were unable to talk in anything more than elliptical sentences. He doubted Xavier Boxton even knew what a preposition was; let alone how to use one.

"Imma getting a vacuum cleaner – for ornamental reasons."

"I've told you Dom, bring it over to Ron and Hermione's – they've got electricity. Then you could vacuum up Lily and she'd stop being a spoilt brat."

"I've asked for a bicycle," Gina McLaggen said, Archie looked up feeling startled: Gina usually spent every period of muggle studies angstily colouring in her fingernail's black with her Raven quill (Hogwarts' answer to the emo culture – not half as dramatic, Archie thought). Unless she had similar abilities to those groovy extra absorbent muggle sponges, he'd thought the only thing she'd get out of muggle studies was ink poisoning. Yet it seemed she'd remembered something of the four hours he'd spent explaining muggle methods of travel! Finally the forty five minutes he'd spent explaining the London underground felt worthwhile! "To help mum with the washing up, you know, but I don't think she'll get one – dad is clueless about things like that."

Nope. Dreams crushed. Just another day in the life, Archie supposed.

"Aren't bikes those things with wheels?" Xavier asked, flicking back through the pages of his notebook with an expression which seemed to indicate extreme misfortune rather than confusion about bicycles. He was chubby too. Not his favourite student, all things considered.

"I'll bring mine in after Christmas." Archibald said with a sigh.

"You've got a bike?" Dom asked gleefully, "Can I ride it?"

"Not after the incident with the space hopper."

"Fred pushed me!" Whined Miss Barbie from the back row, well technically her real name was Shelly but quite frankly it amounted to the same thing. She was currently painting her nails fuchsia but at least she was listening whilst simultaneously stinking his classroom out. Recently she'd developed a habit of not looking at Archibald in the eye, which Archibald was generally quite glad about – it meant he didn't have to be scared he's say something inappropriate about Shelly's dislike of charms or be terrified of her killer nails becoming a little too intimate with his eyeballs. "It wasn't my fault the window broke!"

"Are you doing anything exciting over the holiday professor?" Dom asked cheerfully, her elf ears slipping as she cocked her head to one side like an over excited puppy.

"Yes actually, Weasley, my girlfriend and I are going on a muggle tour."

"Is she a muggle nut too?" Fred asked.

"No, well, not exactly. I haven't told her about the holiday yet – surprise,"

"She probably won't like it." Gina said, drawing festive branches of holly on her arms. Oh no, wait, on closer inspection he was pretty sure that she was attempting to draw barbed wire. She wasn't very good at art either then. Just angst.

"She's interested in my job," Archibald said, suddenly feeling slightly unsure. His mother had often thrust books containing relationship advice in his direction (mostly when he turned thirty five and he _still _wasn't married) and in the end he had read the ones by muggle authors – primarily to understand more of the culture, of course – and he'd thought that he ticked the 'being yourself' boxes by inviting her on the holiday-of-a-lifetime. "The tour looks really exciting, too, you're not allowed to bring your wand and then you have to cook for yourself and you stay in muggle hotels and visit muggle points of interest and -"

"So you'd probably be getting an airport then?"

"Aeroplane, Boxton, but no it's all in England!"

"Isn't it going to be cold?" Barbie/Shelly said from the back, blowing on her nails to dry them off. She'd probably whack her toes out in a minute, "does she like freezing to death in rubbish muggle hotels when the central heating's broken and you can't turn the gas on so you can't eat anything warm?"

"Speaking from experience, Shells?" Dom asked.

"My parents decided to get divorced on a muggle tour," She said sounding thoroughly bored, "and that was the best bit of the holiday – at least after that we were allowed to go home. Well, mum wasn't – but that's beside the point."

"Oh," Archibald said. He'd whimsically thought they'd be sitting in front of open fires and roasting marshmallows (amongst other things) but...

"Never mind," Dom said bracingly, "you could always join one of those muggle dating sites."

"Quirky male, age fifty." Fred began with a grin.

"Don't be silly, he's not a day over twenty five," Dom grinned, "teacher, dark brown hair, interested in either gender..."

"Probably has commitment issues." Gina said, looking up from her doodling – now a slightly decapitated santa clause. Poor girl.

"Poor fashion sense." Miss Barbie chirped up, adding a third coat of nail varnish to her nails.

"Obsessed with computer gaming," Xavier said grumpily, still writing notes about goodness knows what. It really wasn't like anything educational was going on at this moment in time – the kid should really learn now to chill out. They were watching a film, for Merlin's sake, and no one even seemed to be watching that.

"Looking for somebody, _please_!" Dom finished with a dramatic flourish which sent her elf ears flying across the classroom. They hit Spencer Edgecombe on the head but he was asleep so it didn't really matter much.

"What's the difference between a tricycle and a bicycle?" Muggle nut extraordinaire, Boris Belby asked eagerly. He'd been so fixated on watching the film (and a jolly good film it was too) that Archibald hadn't been continually reminded of his really rather irritating presence, but now it seemed – all too soon – the credits were rolling and he'd missed that terrible emotional ending to such a classic story of love, childhood and naivety, "is it just the number of wheels... or is it the general target audience of the vehicle? And what's a unicycle? Are they only used by children's entertainers or...?"

"Why don't you try work that out Belby? In fact, that's your holiday homework – I want a page of notes about the difference between bicycles, unicycles and tricycles and whom you might expect to use them, the purpose of them ect... for the first day back! We have a double period, I do believe, and I will bring my bicycle in and the person who has the best notes may get a turn – or maybe not," he said quickly, because he wasn't letting Fred Weasley anywhere near his bicycle, "we'll see."

Gina scrunched up her face, which was pretty woeful at the best of time, and pouted at him slightly. There was an air of distinct tension about the room. Normally, Archibald Penrose did not set such things as 'holiday homework.'

"Could we just do a poster instead?" Gina said hopefully, and then everyone seemed to relax – Xavier returned to making notes (was he writing a novel or something?), Dom continued trying to retrieve her elf ears without waking up Spencer, Fred returned to doing not very much and Shelly/Barbie continue doing something complicated to her nails that made them reflective.

"Fine," Archibald sighed, slumping down on the edge of the desk, "knock yourself out."

It was sad that he felt the need to add 'not literally' onto the end of that sentence. There was something in Fred Weasley's eyes that made him think it would be unwise not to...

* * *

_Given I got quite a few nice reviews on the last chapter, I thought I might as well upload this next one sharpish. There's still another two prewritten, so... we're all good on that front. Also, just to add - I don't own any of the things mentioned in this chapter. All thoes films? Not mine..._

_Miracle on 34th Street belongs to 20th Centuary Fox_  
_The Notebook belongs to New Line Cinema based on a book by Nicola Sparks_  
_Star Wars belongs to 20th Centuary Fox/George Lucas_  
_Mean Girls - Paramount pictures_  
_Grease - Paramount pictures_  
_Teletubbies - Ragdoll productions_  
_Bicycles? Also not mine. Damn._

_Reviews are lovely!****_

Up next: Archie bets that he can go a whole month without magic. 


	5. Squabbles and Squibbles

January.

Third Years (+ two helping hands + one interruption).

Nine students (+ extras).

Merlin.

* * *

Archibald knew when he was close to getting mad and yelling, something which he tended to do about once a term when the pressure of teaching a lot of blithering idiots about life-enriching things that they didn't give a damn about got too much– and come mid January he was getting very very close. Part of it was because Professor Corner had bet him a month's salary that Archibald was a hypocrite who couldn't survive without magic any more than the rest of them – hence during the ill-fated teachers New Year's party (he wouldn't have agreed at any other moment in time, but being dumped on boxing day and having to crawl his sorry self back to Hogwarts for the remainder of the holidays had left him feeling rather reckless) he'd stupidly agreed that unless he made it to the first of February without using magic he would cough up an entire month's pay and wear a T-shirt saying 'The squibs' (which were a terrible band) for an entire weekend.

If he won Michael Corner would surrender both his pay for the month (considerably more than his own, not that he was complaining or anything...) and his _wand_ for the weekend.

Archibald was not going to win.

Michael Corner had managed to enlist the help of Terry Boot (fellow professor) to jump out on him in the middle of corridors, presuming of course that he'd pull out his wand and hex them. He'd stopped carrying his wand around him, but knowing that round the next corner a middle age man might be waiting brandishing some muggle artefact and yelling 'bonsai!' (why, he'd not asked) was beginning to make him jumpy. They'd tried to enlist Neville Longbottom's help too, but he was a little useless and the one occasion he'd attempted to surprise Archibald Neville had wound up in the hospital wing with a purple carrot stuck out of his ear. No one knew how.

"What would happen if you put your hand in a toaster?"

"I don't know, Lockhart, why don't you just try it?" Archibald snapped, before remembering the 'how to avoid lawsuits' part of his three day teacher training course, "you'd probably wind up with a toasted hand and although that might seem all fun and games and first, after the third person has buttered your toasty-palms I am sure it was cease to be amusing. Bringing us swiftly on to... potato peelers. Careful now, as much as I would _love _to peel off my skin during these lessons I really don't want to have to explain to the Headmistress why several of my pupils seem to think that they are vegetables."

Johnny English took one of the counters and seemed to be testing it on his forearm.

"English, if you really do think you're a potato will you do me a favour and go sit in Hagrid's vegetable patch instead of wasting time in my lessons?"

"Sarcastic much," Kevin muttered, raising his eyebrows for a second as he took his own vegetable peeler and prodded it ceremoniously.

"Detention, don't talk back." Archibald muttered.

"Seriously?" Kevin demanded, raising a challenging eyebrow.

"No, but well... that's your last warning. I hope you learn from it."

"Sure," Kevin said, dropping his potato peeler onto the desk and folding his arms, "like a Ravenclaw on a Sunday."

"Quiet."

"Is that my post-final-warning-warning?"

"It's me telling you to _shut up_, Pips,"

"Are teachers allowed to say things like that?" Tabatha Street asked, blinking up at him.

"It depends how annoying the student in question is, okay – I suppose _no one_ can tell me what you do with a potato peeler?"

"You peel potatoes, sir!" Hugo said, his hand soaring into the air so quickly that he knocked Lily Potter's geek-chic glasses flying into the air.

"Hugo!" She snapped, folding her arms sassily and making him scramble around on the floor to retrieve her glasses. Right on.

"Wouldn't they work for most kinds of Vegetables," Kevin suggested lazily, "_sir_." he added as an afterthought.

"Yes, Kevin," Archibald said, "well done... and you too, I suppose, Hugo," He added reluctantly. Archibald always felt that he was encouraging Hugo to act like an overexcited geek-show by congratulating him for getting the right answer. He didn't like to endorse these sorts of things, as there were very few positions in life for which the skill was actually useful.

He was in one of them.

"So, what is this?" Archibald said, picking the microwave up from behind his desk and letting it fall heavily on the desk. The loud noise when microwave met wooden desk was gloriously satisfying and seemed to shut up everyone, even Hugo, for a split second. Then Tabatha Street started to cry.

Oh, hell.

"Tabby doesn't like loud noises." Johnny English said, leaning across the space between her desks and patting her a bit. Last Archibald had heard, Johnny English was been dating 'Tabby' (dear Merlin, her name was terrible enough without the addition of an even more ridiculous nickname) and by the look of the serious sexual tension conveyed through that _pat on the arm_, young love was still blooming.

It had been the charming charms teacher who'd relayed the happy news to him in the Staff room, excitedly chattering about how she'd had to tell them off for holding hands in her classroom. Teenagers sickened him, as did the charming charms teacher (ish). Really, who cared?

"She shouldn't have picked Muggle studies then, really." Kevin grinned, stretching out his arms and looking far too comfortable. Were you allowed to give detentions for that?

He decided he probably wasn't which was, when you thought about it, a damned shame.

"Street," Archibald said wearily, "do you need to go outside?" Tabatha's expression, which was still a little crumpled and snotty (ew) disappeared into Johnny English's arm. Excellent. He could deal with _that issue_. "Lockhart," Archie continued, "what would you call this?"

"Roderigo." Kevin interjected.

"Is your name Goliath Lockhart?" Archibald said, turning his gaze to face Kevin and raising his eyebrows at him.

"No, thank God."

Amen to that.

"Well," Archibald said, "don't answer for him. Particularly with insolent remarks."

This whole discipline thing would be easier if he didn't find Kevin so amusing, because as far as grotty slightly gross teenagers went Kevin's blatant attitude problem _was_ one of the most appealing and smiling-inducing he'd come across – in fact, given Kevin generally had quite good personal hygiene and tended to pick things up a little faster than he let on, usually forcing Archie to questioning him for a good ten minute so on some stupid tangential point before revealing he knew the answer all along, Kevin was usually easier to put up with then some of the others.

It was just on days like this, when he was half expecting one of the teachers to burst in yelling about the blitz trying to shock him into pulling out his wand and hexing their face off, that he really didn't need all the_back chat. _

"Lockhart," Archibald said, turning towards the boy and trying not to wince, "what is this?"

"A mini drinks fridge!"

"No," Archibald muttered, feeling the oncoming wave of a brutal migraine stirring up in his temple.

"Close?"

"Well," Archibald said, "in as much as it is _a kitchen appliance _you are correct, although considering that is this week's topic I'm not entirely surprised you managed to guess within the right genre, in terms of function… well, I want you to think of what a drink fridge does, and then think of _the exact opposite _and then you're there."

"A mini oven?"

"More or less," Archibald sighed, "so, have you all recipe plans to hand in?" He was met by a sea of very vacant looks. "You know," Archie said, "your _homework?" _

Apparently not.

~BREAK~

Archibald had absolutely no idea why he submitted himself to such tortures, yet here he was preparing for an hour of pure hell in the name of making his classes more enjoyable for a motley crew of the lazy and the stupid, when they clearly went out of their way to make him as stressed as possible.

"Does anyone know who Jessica James is?" Archibald asked, bored of calling her name off on the register and receiving nothing in response. He'd also asked that question a fair number of times and had spent several hours requesting that she be removed from his register and subsequently his responsibility, but apparently it was more important for it to appear to the governors that she was actually taking the required numbers of courses.

"Jessie's sick." Tabatha said.

"Well," Archibald said, "that's a shame. So as you know, today we have two house elves coming to help you guys with your cookery project and to ensure that you're properly supervised. They've been given strict instructions _not _to do all the work for you, so it would be nice if you didn't cause a House Elf order-confusion breakdown in the next hour."

"Sir," Franklinstien said, "as I can't make chips," he made a face, "I don't know how you make apple crumble."

It had been a categorical no as to whether Franklinstein, or indeed any of them, would be allowed to use a deep fat fryer – even if the things worked in Hogwarts, for which the burn on Archie's leg was testament to the negative – he wouldn't have let any of his pupils touch one. Not even ones like Elliot Cooper or his forth years, of whom he often had pleasant dreams about them falling into a humungous liquidiser and irritating him no more.

He wasn't even going to let them use ovens. They got to participate in the first little bits of cooking, like peeling potatoes and employing that classic 'rubbing in' method, before the house elves took over the rest.

"Have you looked it up in the recipe book?" Archibald suggested lightly. "It's spelt _A-P-P-L-E -"_

"- I know how to spell," he muttered irritably, "even if I haven't read Frankenstein I can _spell." _

"Your essay into the basic principles of the statue of secrecy says otherwise."

"Sir," Hugo said, blinking up at him with a rather blank expression, "are you… okay?"

Archibald wasn't sure what was most disturbing about this. For one, there was the fact that the only person who'd asked about his welfare today was one of his thirteen year old odd-ball students and from the levels of weak-minded conversation evident from his eyes Hugo was genuinely worried about him (concerning both on the level that _student _thought he was on the edge of a mental break down, and the fact that _Hugo_ genuinely diverted enough attention away from the teenage norms – sex and food – to consider the mental state of his_Muggle Studies Professor) _and when someone as utterly dotty as Hugo was worried about you it was fair to say you were screwed.

"Archibald, miss," Dettie, one of the House Elves who'd been so eager to volunteer to help him with his class, said eagerly, "are you hungry, Archibald miss?"

Archibald could feel a little more of his resolve crinkling into nothing.

It had been so long since he'd been too embarrassed to face the Staff Table – probably after last Peer Assessment week, actually – that he'd forgotten that, although Dettie was a really lovely and obliging house elf, the gender confusion issue had come out of nowhere.

Archibald had even grown a beard, last October, to try and assert the fact that he'd rather be referred to as 'Archibald, _sir_' but the 'miss' seemed to be the sort of thing that had stuck and was difficult to get rid of.

He could _feel _his pupils preparing the punch lines to a million jokes.

"No thanks, Dettie," Archibald said, staring straight back at his students as if his gaze could prevent them from finding this funny, "but Goliath Lockhart looks like he's having some problems kneading his dough."

"Are you, though, sir?" Hugo said, leaning forwards and looking up at him with wide eyes, "just, you've been a bit -"

"Get back to work, Hugo," Archie said pointedly, "a Victoria sponge won't cook by itself."

The last thing he needed, on top of his fellow teachers still ambushing him in more and more creative ways as the month got closer towards the end, and Dettie somehow thinking that he was a female, his current state of homelessness and singleness was his pupils starting to psychoanalyse him.

"He was dumped over Christmas," Kevin said, loudly, "I heard Boot and Corner discussing it outside the staff room."

"Thank you, Pips." Archibald said pointedly.

Dettie the house elf pressed a plate of biscuits towards him with the declaration "for your broken heart, miss."

Wonderful. Now he had gender confused House Elves prescribing him comfort eating in front of a room of thirteen year old brats trying to _bake _things Muggle Style.

"I think I've cut my finger," Herman Goyle piped up, staring at where blood was indeed dripping from his finger and into Johnny English's cheesecake, "it hurts."

Archibald was just about to suggest that, unless the tip of his finger was not attached to the rest of his finger, Herman had the choice of either manning up or popping along to the Hospital Wing if it was still bleeding in a minute (but either way he was factoring in 'but heaven's sake stop bleeding into the cream cheese'), when something rather remarkable happened.

He wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't expected his fourth year students to burst into his classroom wearing war paint and brandishing their wands, performing what he only assumed could be their interpretation of the Rain Dance, but he had to admit that the whole thing had taken him by surprise.

Tabatha, who apparently still didn't like loud noises and had developed a nervous disposition during Muggle Studies lessons, launched herself towards her heroic 'boyfriend.' Johnny English, with all the heroics and finesse of a thirteen year old boy was taken by surprise and promptly fell off his chair. During the fall his arms began the classic 'windmill' motion of attempting to secure balance (which inherently, it never did) which sent the bowl of crumble flying through the air and raining down that exact mixture of sugar, butter and flour that tasted _oh so perfect. _

Lily Potter shrieked and dove for cover under the desk, whereas Hugo got a face-full and didn't seem too bothered about it. Dettie and her partner in crime, Winky, switched over to _major clean up mode_ almost instantaneously and through all the commotion Archie was vaguely aware that his forth years were _still_prancing around his classroom, that Corner and Boot were stood in the doorway laughing, that he hadn't got a clue what was going on with Lockhart and Franklinstien and that Herman Goyle hadn't noticed anything had happened because he was still inspecting his marginally bloody finger.

"SILENCIO!" Archibald yelled.

Everyone shut up.

It took a split second for Archibald to realise that he didn't have his wand on him. Around three seconds to consider the possibility of him having mastered wandless magic and then discard it, and another two to come to the unsaleable conclusion that, finally, the stress had gotten to him and had caused his eardrums to spontaneously combust.

He had gone deaf. It was the only explanation.

"Er," Kevin Pips said, raising his eyebrows slightly, "don't you erm… need a wand for that to work?"

More astounding than deafness! He'd simply shocked the inhabitants of the classroom into silence.

"Are you a squib?" One his forth years asked loudly.

"No," Archibald said, frowning at him.

"Show us some magic then, Sir."

"I haven't got my wand on me," Archibald said, blessing the fact that he'd had the peace of mind to lock it away in his office in the name of _winning this bet. _

"Borrow mine," Corner said, grinning as he stepped into the classroom and held out the stick.

Oh, hell.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" Archibald muttered, not taking the wand and folding his arms over his chest. It wasn't like his wage was really worth all that much, but 'The Squibs' really were _a terrible _band. Anyway, Archibald would not give in. After such a long month he _would not cave. _

"It's okay," Hugo said, "if you are a Squib sir, none of us would mind."

That, he very much doubted, he was sure that if he was known as a squib his teacher-cred was sure to drop several more octaves, and it was already in a state so low that deep sea diving equipment was needed to squint at it.

"Is that why you're a Muggle Studies teacher?" Lily Potter asked, flicking her hair out of her face sassily.

"No," Archibald said, "now… get back to work."

"I really think," Dettie said, her eager voice looking up at him, "that you should have a cookie, Archibald, miss."

He could _hear _his fourth years absorbing this new information (it sounded like a lot more sniggering) and Michael Corner was looking as though Christmas had come eleven months early, but Archibald had reached saturation point: considering, right now, there was almost nothing he could do contain the rumour that he was a Cross dressing Squib teacher (his fourth years were notoriously good at spreading things and with the help of two Professor confirming such rumours, it was practically _factual) _he thought he might as well admit defeat and eat the cookies.

Sometimes, even cross-dressing-squib-teachers needed to comfort eat.


End file.
